Monday, July 18, 2011

KRG
readers were wide-ranging in their choice of poets to recite: five
nationalities, and two poets in translation.

Talitha reads poems by Louis MacNeice

Many
characteristics of poetry have been used to describe it. Here's one
that Joe offered at this reading in connection with the French poet,
Gérard
de Nerval:

The
end of a poem is creating a sound that resonates in the mind, long
after its slight meaning is forgotten.

This
will remind some readers of Dylan Thomas' reaction to a person who
asked what his famous villanelle on death 'meant' – to which he
replied, “You should listen to the sound of the meaning.” In the
full account below you will come across further reflections.

Thommo shows Talitha his copy of The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce

Judging
from the laughter that resounded in the CYC library, we all had a
good time; a verbal record will not capture the fun that attended the
actual reading, though the readers had put in serious preparation.
Talitha had insights and diversions to offer at every turn, and so
did others.

Talitha, KumKum, Zakia, Bobby, Priya, Thommo,and Joe

While offering our commiseration to those who could not
attend the reading, perhaps they will derive something of its flavour by reading the
full account below.

The next session for reading the novel The Kite
Runner by Khaled Hosseini will be on Friday Aug 12, 2011,
at the Cochin Yacht Club library. Priya has agreed to convene and
record the session for the blog.

Sept
23 is proposed for the next Poetry session.

Two
members, are dropping out – Amita, definitely, because she is
moving to Chennai, and Indira, probably, because she is busy moving
to Chengannur, and once relocated will find it difficult to attend
our readings. Bobby suggested that he could invite us to his
Chalakudy retreat for a reading some time. We shall look forward to
the date. At the same time he made the suggestion that a
reading could be held at Indira's future residence. But she has to
invite us, said Joe. Bobby's jocular rejoinder was that we could
invite ourselves! It takes 2.5 hours to get there, it seems; so it
would be a whole day affair and there are working people among us.

Miscellany

Bobby
mentioned he has started a 'Think' club within the CYC and that the
Kerala Govt has sanctioned Rs 5 crores for a 'Biennale' in Kochi
beginning in Nov 2012. A chap called Bose-Krishnamachari hopes to
raise 70 crores for the event. Talitha hoped that we could stage a
Shakespeare event at David Hall in Fort Kochi, as they are looking
for shows. She has a program developed for the purpose, including
music with Shakespearean material.

KumKum

KumKum
introduced James Joyce (1882-1942),
the Irish poet, novelist, and intellectual with these words:

Joyce
was born at a time when Ireland had raised many poets, authors, and
intellectuals including, Yeats, Campbell, and Stephens. James Joyce
remains distinct in this group for he left Ireland very early in his
life; he did not write about Irish nationalism or mythology; nor did
he glorify Celtic culture or support the aspirations of Irish people.
Yet, his stories are replete with Irish connections; for example, the
city of Dublin appears as a setting in many of his works.

It
is said Joyce cherished his position among other writers of his time
as an "unconsortable". [Talitha suggested other synonyms
for this word: unclubbable,
for instance, a sample use being, 'Kumar
is not popular at Lotus, being decidedly an unclubbable man.'
Another term is also used: 'he doesn't mingle.'] Joyce developed a
distinct style of writing prose. The style may have made his prose
difficult to appreciate, though it was never devoid of substance or
lyricism. His novel Ulysses
has the distinction of being a tough book to read.

Yet,
when it comes to his poems, James Joyce has an altogether different
style. Joyce began to write poems very early in his life, later
shifting to prose. It is simply amazing how accessible his poems are.
They are simple, lyrical and touchingly personal. He preserved this
distinct trait of his verse, though he wrote very little of it past
his twenties.

There
are only two very thin volumes: Chamber
Music,
and Pomes
Pennyeach
and one separate poem, Ecce
Puer.
I have selected a poem from each book, and the solitary one, Ecce
Puer.

The
poems of Chamber
Music
were meant to be set in music and composers have written melodies for
a number of them. See:

KumKum
claimed that Chamber
Music is
a collection of love poems written at a time when Joyce was single
and unattached to a particular woman. In 1909, Joyce wrote to his
wife, "When I wrote [Chamber
Music],
I was a lonely boy, walking about by myself at night and thinking
that one day a girl would love me." Joe, however, sees them as
just being evocations of a dreamy lyrical mood, but agrees the word
'love' is scattered throughout.

Joyce's love was not physical at the
time, but Joe pointed out Joyce's intense physicality, and even
fetishes, that come out in 'dirty' love-letters he wrote to Nora, his
wife. Here's a very short quote out of many: 'if I gave you a bigger
stronger fuck than usual, fat dirty farts came spluttering out of
your backside.' This has been converted into a cartoon you may see at:

Academics
often read into a poem meanings that are not there. Bobby reaffirmed
the saying (Frost) that a poem should not mean, but be. Talitha added
that a poem should stand on its own, without the need for notes on
its antecedence. Joe agreed; but KumKum pointed out that certain
poems are compressed and the true point or poignancy of the poem may
not be revealed unless one knows the poet's particular situation when
s/he wrote it; but yes, you can have a nice poem like the second one
she recited (A
Flower Given to My Daughter
)and
find convoluted interpretations of it on the Internet.

Concerning
the third poem (Ecce
Puer)
KumKum noted that it was written soon after his grandson was born,
and a little while after his father died; there is in the poem the
regret he felt over not visiting his father in Ireland before his
death. When KumKum adverted to the 'strange' relationship Joyce had
with his father there was a general feeling that what would have been
strange is if he had had a 'good' relationship with his father; the
universal case is that fathers and sons do not get on, according to
Bobby, and others present. Freud has his own theory about why.

While
KumKum lamented the meager output of poems from Joyce, Joe said three
or four of his poems would have made a professional poet proud,
slight though the total output may be.

Talitha

Talitha read four
poems by Louis MacNeice, the Irish poet. She said from her
experience, children in school liked the first poem she read at the
O-levels (school final) because of the beat and the repetition. It is
simple and visual, unlike the classical poets with their mythology.
The prayer comes through as a cry against the harsh unfeeling world
into which a child will be born. KumKum said, though she has never
read MacNeice, she liked the poem. When students ask, as they always
do, what it means, Talitha told them to just listen, and they will
discover the meaning. She pointed out the abundant alliteration (and
assonance) at the beginning. Bobby referred to the line:

Let not the man
who is beast or who thinks he is God come near me.

and wondered if it
refers to pastors, who are a pet peeve of Bobby. It really refers to
anyone who is a megalomaniac, said Talitha, such as Hitler.

In
the second poem (Snow)
it is worth noting that he uses 'World' instead of 'The world',
personifying it. The poem is very impressionistic and a moment’s
pause and going back is necessary to savour its rich imagery. A
feature of this poem is the yoking of unlikely words ('Soundlessly
collateral and incompatible') and the sound of things difficult to
imagine, for instance this phrase: 'The drunkenness of things being
various.' Yet it makes sense to think that in the cosy world of a
fire-lit room, snug and warm as the snow falls; there is till
disorder in it. The snowflakes falling against the window, reflecting
the fireplace flames, is a lovely image – they are described as '
pink roses.' Talitha said MacNeice was a 'risk-taker' in language.

She
then read the poem Stargazer.
Forty two years ago may be the date he was born and he contemplates
the light coming to his eye now would have left the star when he was
born. He ends the poem with the thought that there may be none like
him to catch the light now issuing from the stars when they do arrive
on earth, at least none performing his peculiar side-to-side rushing
in a train compartment to catch their sight. But what is 'adding
noughts in vain'?

What's
charming about the fourth poem (Soap
Suds) is the catalogue
of ordinary household artifacts that dot the house and make it like a
true home. The poem comes to a close with lines that loop to the
flashback that starts the poem. It's a grown man washing his hands,
and dreamily going back to the time as a child when he played
(croquet, probably) on the lawn. The imagery is like a telescope
zooming out and further out, and dissolving.

Biography
of Louis MacNeice

Louis MacNeice was
born on September 12, 1907, in Belfast, Ireland. He attended Oxford,
where he majored in classics and philosophy. In 1930, he married
Giovanna Ezra and accepted a post as classics lecturer at the
University of Birmingham, a position he held until 1936, when he went
on to teach Greek at Bedford College for Women, University of London.
In 1941, he joined the British Broadcasting Company as a staff writer
and producer. Like many modern English poets, MacNeice found an
audience for his work through British radio. Some of his best-known
plays, including 'Christopher Columbus' (1944), and 'The Dark Tower'
(1946), were originally written for radio and later published.

Early in his
career, MacNeice was identified with a group of politically committed
poets whose work appeared in Michael Roberts's anthology New
Signatures. MacNeice drew many of the texts for Modern Poetry: 'A
Personal Essay from the New Signature poets'. Modern Poetry was
MacNeice's plea for an "impure" poetry expressive of the
poet's immediate interests and his sense of the natural and the
social world.

Despite his
association with young British poets Stephen Spender, W. H. Auden,
writer Christopher Isherwood, and other left-wing poets, MacNeice was
as mistrustful of political programs as he was of philosophical
systems. He was never a member of the Communist Party or any other
political groups, and he was quite candid about the ambiguities of
his political attitudes. "My sympathies are Left," he
wrote. "But not in my heart or my guts."

Although he chose
to live the majority of his adult life in London, MacNeice frequently
returned to the landscapes of his childhood, and he took great pride
in his Irish heritage. His poetry is characterized by its familiar,
sometimes humorous tone and its integration of contemporary ideas and
images. In addition to his poetry and radio dramas, MacNeice also
wrote the verse translation 'The Agamemnon of Aeschylus' (1936),
translated Goethe's 'Faust' (1951), and collaborated with Auden on
the 'travelogue Letters from Iceland' (1937).

In August of 1963,
MacNeice, on location with a BBC team, insisted on going down into a
mineshaft to check on sound effects. He caught a chill that was not
diagnosed as pneumonia until he was fatally ill.

He died on
September 3, 1963, just before the publication of his last book of
poems, The Burning Perch. He was 55 years old.

Bobby

Bobby
read a
poem from 1500 years ago, when this Sanskrit philosopher, grammarian,
and poet, Bhartrihari, collected these aphorisms into books of
hundred each. They are called shatakatraya
(shataka=hundred
+ traya=three),
consisting of three thematic compilations on shringara,
vairagya
and niti
(loosely, love, dispassion and moral conduct). Bobby said Bhartrihari
was a king who left his kingdom and went to the forest when his wife
cheated on him. The poem he read is in a collection called The
Hermit And The Love-Thief: Sanskrit Poems Of Bhartrihari And Bilhana
(Penguin
Classics).http://www.flipkart.com/books/0140445846

After
Bobby read it, Talitha exclaimed that she missed the sound of the
Sanskrit and wished it could be recited like slokas are. Bobby
replied that you can hear and revel in the sound of Sanskrit by
listening to Jesudas chanting the hymns from the Rig-Veda.
For those who read Sanskrit, here is the original of the poem from
the Web:

KumKum
requested a Malayalam poem should be recited at a poetry session by
some one among us who knows the language well; a translation should
be given also. Talitha also looks forward to such a presentation. She
sang two lines from a poem of Kumaranasan, Samayamilla
Polum. You can hear it sung
here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiBNQxN8ZDYSamayamayilla
Polum - Malayalam Song, sung by
P. Susheela, with music direction by Devarajan master

In
Talitha's opinion, Malayalam is a great improvement on Tamil. Joe
said the Malayalam language is quite recent, not more than a few
hundred years old, since it forked off from Tamil; whereas Tamil has
a very ancient history. Isn't there a bit of chauvinism in claiming
Malayalam's superiority?

For
some reason the recent discovery of the wealth stashed away in
cellars in the Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Thiruvananathapuram (TVM)
was discussed.

Priya gave some history of of a threat from outsiders
being the reason the treasure was hidden in the younger brother's
temple. It was in connection with the last two lines of the poem
advocating other-worldliness:

Meditate then
on the highest BrahmanTo cross beyond this sea of worldly dread.

The
present descendants of Travancore royalty seem to have that
detachment:“...
Sri Uthradom Thirunal Marthanda Varma, has stayed away from the
public debate about what should be done with the treasure. But in an
interview at his modest home, he seemed to suggest that it should be
preserved for future generations. “
Seehttp://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/09/world/asia/09temple.html

Zakia
thought the line:

Fortune
is imagination's whim

is
a nice expression of the the disregard with which we should treat
earthly possessions.

There
is a tradition of the king visiting the temple every day, and if he
does not show up he has to pay a fine of Rs 166; that is the
equivalent value of the silver coin by which he paid the fine in the
old days. Bobby suggested that no-shows at our KRG should also pay a
fine of a similar amount. There was general laughter at the
suggestion.

Priya

Priya
recited a poem (Ode
to the West Wind by Shelley)
which she was teaching to her son, Partheswar, Pat for short. She
provided the etymology of the name. Partha means friend. Partheswar
is the friend of Arjun, i.e., Krishna. Her other son is Samantheswar,
or Sam for short.

Percy
Bysshe Shelley eloped with his first wife, Harriet. Later he married
the true love of his life, Mary (néeMary Wollstonecraft Godwin).
Talitha quoted a high-flown sentence of Matthew Arnold concerning
Shelley: “A beautiful and ineffectual angel beating his
luminous wings against the void in vain.” There is in it some
denigration that Joe thinks is entirely undeserved. You can declare
every revolutionary or rebellious spirit who failed, ineffectual,
including Mahatma Gandhi. But his legacy is as a poet, and Shelley's
place is secure as a major poet in English. Arnold, on the other
hand, will be remembered more for his criticism, than his poetry. You
can read a brief bio of the poet and Mary Shelley
at:http://www.authorama.com/famous-affinities-of-history-iv-3.html

He
died very young of a drowning accident and was cremated when his
decomposed body washed up some days later. Shelley's ashes were
interred in the Protestant Cemetery, Rome, the same cemetery where
John Keats was buried the previous year, for whom Shelley wrote his
famous elegy on the death of John Keats, Adonaïs.
Such was his admiration for Keats that he wrote this long and tender
poem which begins “I weep for Adonais—he is dead!” Talitha
remarked that a copy of Keats' works was found in a pocket on his
drowned body.

The
Ode to the West Wind is written in terza rima, rhymed ABA,
BCB, CDC, etc. It is mostly in iambic pentameter. Terza rima
was Dante's invention. The whole poem is a personification. It is
melodramatic according to Talitha in some places, for instance:

O
lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!I
fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

Joe
thought children when reading this can soar in their mind as the
poetry does, if it is recited enthusiastically by a teacher. But if
the teacher is blasé, then there is no hope for the children ever
looking on this, except as a laugh.

There
is a play based on this poem, and Talitha promised to give a
reference.

Zakia

Zakia
recited the poem Bright
Star
by John Keats (1795-1820). He was in love with Fanny Brawne, Zakia
said, she of the 'warm, white, lucent, million-pleasured breast' whom
Keats yearned for even as he lay dying in Rome from TB. You can read
more about Keats from this chapter of a book by the poet Andrew
Motion, which inspired the movie named for this poem, directed by
Jane Campion:

where
a finicky commenter, named Pruchnicki, gives a laboured explanation:

The
poet opens with an apostrophe to 'Bright Star.' The object of his
direct address symbolizes the everlasting nature of a heavenly body,
which hangs in the sky through all eternity, and by its very nature
burns forever. We who look up and see the burning star draw the
inevitable conclusion most mortals would given the circumstances. The
star sits in the sky, every night in the same place, or so it seems
to us who cannot see that the star is in reality undergoing daily
changes from one night to the next. The star seems to be a stationary
object, and so we attribute the human quality of steadfast devotion
and patience to the unmoving star as it watches the changes that take
place under its steadfast gaze!

The
sestet beginning with 'still steadfast, still unchangeable' puts the
poet's longing to possess his love like he imagines the eternal star
to be forever gazing down at earth's mutability, exactly what he
desires to be as he lies aswoon on his beloved one's breast which
rises and falls with her breathing, and so he will live forever in
ecstasy or die in her arms. She is his sole aim in life or death. The
ever recurrent preoccupation Keats has with death comes to the fore
once again!

Comprende?

To quote a few lines from Keats' sonnet To Fanny Brawne lest matters be still obscure:

It
really is quite a beautiful film on the poet's life, though by
focusing on Fanny Brawne, the movie took something away from the
richness of Keats' short and varied life. Talitha said this poem
with its emphasis on 'star' made her think of MacNeice's poem she had
recited earlier, musing on the light of distant stars that took so
long to reach us – 42 light years would make it the bright star
Capella in the constellation Auriga (Latin for Charioteer).

Talitha
suggested a themed recitation at a future date on STARS, the word to
be interpreted as liberally as you wish. You can see 'stars' in
someone else's eyes. You can see stars when you are hit. But you
cannot really see stars in Kochi on account of the sodium vapour
lamps, interjected Joe; but Bobby said he gazed at stars when there
were power cuts. Talitha mentioned Walt Whitman in a poem. He has the
line: “from time to time,/ Look’d up in perfect silence at the
stars.” Priya recalled a line from a song Tarey
tod laun.
Perhaps it is this:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsdjF1wQCFI

Another
one she mentioned was unclear. Talitha added the chant of palanquin
bearers:

Stone
on the groundStars in the sky

Ever
ready with examples, Talitha, gave yet another one from a poem by
Sarojini Naidu, called Palanquin Bearers where
the the porters liken milady who is being carried to a star: 'She
hangs like a star in the dew of our song.'
See:http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/palanquin-bearers/

Talitha
again referred to Sarojini Naidu and golden cassia flowers, which she
describes as 'bright anklet-bells for the wild spring's feet', and as
'fragments of some new-fallen stars'

Or
golden lamps for a fairy shrineOr golden pitchers for fairy wine.

ThommoIt
was only two days ago he learnt that Ambrose Bierce, famous mainly
for his Devil's
Dictionary,
also wrote poetry. So Thommo offered this sappy, soapy poem called To my laundress, which begins with an apostrophe to Saponacea.
Bierce paints a steaming scene with his laundress who has quite
stripped him of parts of his garments so that he is now ready to be
enfolded in the

These
two closing lines caused a wave of titters among the readers. It's
quite as steamy as Keats sonnet To
Fanny Brawne,
isn't it?

The
conversation drifted to what is the longest palindrome in the English
language (I think it was Talitha, bubbling as ever, who broached the
thought). Her answer was, 'A
man a plan, a canal, Panama.'
Another one she volunteered was, from the garden of Eden (apparently
palindromes were the earliest trope known to man or woman): 'Madam,
I'm Adam,'
to which introduction, the lady replied: 'Eve,'
which may be the shortest palindrome. 'Malayalam,'
is another palindrome known to all Keralites. If you search on Google
with 'longest palindrome' you will find computer programs which
generate extremely long palindromes, but they are not as pithy as
some shorter ones like this: 'Sex
at noon taxes.' Thommo offered 'saippuakauppias' as the longest single word palindrome; it's a word in the Finnish language meaning soap dealer .

Thommo
read out a number of humorous entries from the Devil's
Dictionary:

Abdication:
An act whereby a sovereign attests his sense of the high temperature
of his throne

Abstainer:
A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a
pleasure

Acquaintance:
A person who we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough
to lend to.

Admiral:
The part of a warship which does the talking while the
figure-head does the thinking

Adolescence:
A stage between infancy and adultery

Amnesty:The state’s magnanimity to those offenders who, it would be
too expensive to punish

Apologise:
To lay the foundations for a future offence

Auctioneer:
One who proclaims with a hammer that he has picked a pocket
with his tongue.

Beauty:
The power by which a woman charms a lover and terrifies a husband

Brain:
An apparatus with which we think that we think

Bride:
A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her

Christian:
One who thinks that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book
admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor.

Comfort:
A state of mind produced by contemplation of a neighbor’s
uneasiness.

Congratulation:
The civility of envy

Deliberation:
The act of examining one’s bread to determine which side it is
buttered on.

Divorce:
A resumption of diplomatic relations and rectification of boundaries

Education:
That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their
lack of understanding

Exile:
One who serves his country by residing abroad, yet is not an
ambassador

Fiddle:
An instrument to tickle human ears by friction of a horse’s
tail on the entrails of a cat

Genealogy:
An account of one’s descent from an ancestor who did not
particularly care to trace his own.

Gout:
A physician’s name for the rheumatism of a rich patient

Grave:
A place in which the dead are laid to await the coming of the
medical student

Guillotine:
A machine which makes a Frenchman shrug his shoulders with good
reason

Habit:
A shackle of the free

Harbour:
A place where ships taking shelter from storms are exposed to the
fury of the customs

Heathen:
A benighted creature who has the folly to worship something that he
can see feel

Hope:
Desire and expectation rolled into one

Idiot:
A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human
affairs has always been dominant and controlling

Imposter:
A rival aspirant to public honours

Magic:
An art of converting superstition into coin

Marriage:
A community consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves,
making in all two.

Painting:
The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing
them to the critic

Patience:
A minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue

Philanthropist:
A rich (and usually bald) old gentleman who has trained himself to
grin while his conscience is picking his pocket

Plagiarism:
A literary coincidence compounded of a discreditable priority and an
honorable subsequence

Ambrose
Bierce was born in1842. He served in the American Civil War on the
union side and rose to the rank of Lieutenant. He fought in several
battles including Shiloh and the one that later provided the setting
for Chickamauga (1889), one of his best stories. It's about a
little boy who sees a wounded soldier crawling toward a creek from
one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War. He leads the company
to his home and finds the place burning and his mother dead.

In
1871 Bierce married a wealthy miner's daughter, Mollie Day. He
emigrated with his wife in 1872 to England, where he lived in London
from 1872 to 1875, and wrote sketches for the magazines Figaro
and Fun.
He is remembered for The
Devil's Dictionary.His
death some time in 1914 is shrouded in mystery. Read more
at:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrose_Bierce

Talitha
said there is a contest called the monthly Neologism Contest on the
Web, one of whose prizewinning entries was this definition of
Abdication:
to give up all hope
of ever having a flat stomach.
See:

I
came across Gérard de Nerval (1808-1855) when I was learning French.
Desiring to expand my vocabulary from the useful stuff they taught at
L'Alliançe Française de Calcutta, to the artful kind that poetry is
full of, I bought this volume of Nineteenth Century French Verse
(several volumes record different periods). It was full of treasures,
and the very helpful prose translations of Anthony Hartley on the
same page enabled me to acquire not only some words, but a nodding
acquaintance with the major French poets.

But
vocabulary was, of course, not the main thing I got out of the
diversion. It was the soft sibilants and engaging rhyme that
punctuates the French verse of this period which saw so many exciting
experiments and modern trends, later copied in English verse.

To
give you an inkling let me first recite an approximate English
translation of a short 3-stanza poem of de Nerval, called Gothic
Song.

Now,
let me come to the French. But first, note the three stanzas are like
separate aphorisms, devoid of any unifying idea that might link them.
Indeed, if you examine the ideas there are three distinct ones: in
the first stanza, it is the dew-laden flowers evoked by the tears of
his wife; in the second, it is the transitory nature of beauty, a
favourite musing of poets across time and cultures; and the third is
to seize hold of pleasure as the prime principle of life. [Talitha
thought otherwise, for she saw a thread running through tears, dew,
roses, things beautiful.]

Why
is so short poem enfolding three disparate thoughts? To answer that
let me read the French of Chanson Gothique.

I
hope the di-meters, smoothly rhymed ABAB, answer the question I
posed; for the end of a poem is creating a sound that resonates in
the mind long, after its slight meaning is forgotten.

I
mentioned sibilants. There are 18 in all in the French; there are
just 5 or 6 in my English translation, and besides the rhyme has
evaporated. Reproach the translation, but pity the translator faced
with the poor resources of the English language to represent such a
poem!

My
second example, quite as brief, is in trimeter, also rhymed ABAB,
ending with CCCC. First, the English: A Path in the Luxembourg
Gardens

Ah,
You get the sense of sweet regret for a gentle young girl who is now
only a sad dream from the past. But listen to the French of Une
Allée du Luxembourg.

As
before the original is decidedly better than the translation, but
this time not for lack of sibilant resources in the English language,
but simply because the tone of melancholy, and the rhyming of the
verses could not be reproduced by me.

Who
was Gérard de Nerval? He was a
French poet who came just before Baudelaire, who was perhaps the
most notable French poet of the nineteenth century. Living from 1808
to 1855 in Paris, de Nerval was a precursor of many movements in
French literature and art. He translated Goethe extensively,
including Faust,
wrote short stories, and traveled widely in the Middle East. His
lasting work is a series of sonnets, called Les
Chimères
(The Chimeras) but I feared to take them on, for they are heavily
laden with mythology.

de
Nerval was disappointed in love, when he went after a popular and
beautiful actress, Jenny Colon. They say it was a shattering
influence on his life thereafter. A sad postscript is that de Nerval
suffered from mental ailments. Ultimately, he fell into poverty and
became deranged, committing suicide at the age of 46. You can read
more about him at his wiki
entry:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gérard_de_Nerval

The
Poems

KumKum3
poems by James Joyce

Lean
out of the windowNo:
V from Chamber
MusicLean
out of the window, Goldenhair, I hear you singing A merry
air.

My
book was closed, I read no more, Watching the fire dance On
the floor.

I
have left my book, I have left my room, For I heard you
singing Through the gloom.

Singing
and singing A merry air, Lean out of the window, Goldenhair.

A
Flower Given to My Daughter
from Pomes
PennyeachFrail
the white rose and frail areHer hands that gaveWhose soul is
sere and palerThan time's wan wave.

With
water to dandle me, grass to grow for me, trees to talk to me, sky to
sing to me, birds and a white light in the back of my mind to guide
me.

I
am not yet born; forgive me

For
the sins that in me the world shall commit, my words when they speak
me, my thoughts when they think me, my treason engendered by traitors
beyond me, my life when they murder by means of my hands, my death
when they live me.

I
am not yet born; rehearse me

In
the parts I must play and the cues I must take when old men lecture
me, bureaucrats hector me, mountains frown at me, lovers laugh at me,
the white waves call me to folly and the desert calls me to doom and
the beggar refuses my gift and my children curse me.

I
am not yet born; O hear me,

Let
not the man who is beast or who thinks he is God come near me.

I
am not yet born; O fill me

With
strength against those who would freeze my humanity, would dragoon me
into a lethal automaton, would make me a cog in a machine, a thing
with one face, a thing, and against all those who would dissipate my
entirety, would blow me like thistledown hither and thither or hither
and thither like water held in the hands would spill me.

Let
them not make me a stone and let them not spill me.

Otherwise
kill me.

Snow

The
room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was

Spawning
snow and pink roses against it

Soundlessly
collateral and incompatible:

World
is suddener than we fancy it.

World
is crazier and more of it than we think,

Incorrigibly
plural. I peel and portion

A
tangerine and spit the pips and feel

The
drunkenness of things being various.

And
the fire flames with a bubbling sound for world

Is
more spiteful and gay than one supposes–

On
the tongue on the eyes on the ears in the palms of your hands–

There
is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses.

Star-Gazer

Forty-two
years ago (to me if to no one else

The
number is of some interest) it was a brilliant starry night

And
the westward train was empty and had no corridors

So
darting from side to side I could catch the unwonted sight

Of
those almost intolerably bright

Holes,
punched in the sky, which excited me partly because

Of
their Latin names and partly because I had read in the textbooks

How
very far off they were, it seemed their light

Had
left them (some at least) long years before I was.

And
this remembering now I mark that what

Light
was leaving some of them at least then,

Forty-two
years ago, will never arrive

In
time for me to catch it, which light when

It
does get here may find that there is not

Anyone
left alive

To
run from side to side in a late night train

Admiring
it and adding noughts in vain.

Soap
Suds

This
brand of soap has the same smell as once in the big

House
he visited when he was eight: the walls of the bathroom open

To
reveal a lawn where a great yellow ball rolls back through a hoop

To
rest at the head of a mallet held in the hands of a child.

And
these were the joys of that house: a tower with a telescope;

Two
great faded globes, one of the earth, one of the stars;

A
stuffed black dog in the hall; a walled garden with bees;

A
rabbit warren; a rockery; a vine under glass; the sea.

To
which he has now returned. The day of course is fine

And
a grown-up voice cries Play! The mallet slowly swings,

Then
crack, a great gong booms from the dog-dark hall and the ball

Skims
forward through the hoop and then through the next and then

Through
hoops where no hoops were and each dissolves in turn

And
the grass has grown head-high and an angry voice cries Play!

But
the ball is lost and the mallet slipped long since from the hands

Under
the running tap that are not the hands of a child.

Bobby

The
Span of a Man

The
span of a man's life is a measured hundred years,Yet half is lost
to nightAnd of his waking time,Callow youth and hoary age
claim a share;His prime is spent in servitude, sufferingThe
anguish of estrangement and disease.Where do men find
happinessIn life less certain and more transient than the
waves?

Life is a rough uncertain wave,

The
splendour of youth si a transient bloom.Fortune is imagination’s
whim.Pleasure flashes like lightning during the rains.Even
fond embraces of beloved armsDo not rest long in their show of
love.Meditate then on the highest BrahmanTo cross beyond this
sea of worldly dread.